JOHN HEITINGA insists Everton must maintain the intensity which led to their rousing victory over Manchester City if they are to win their race for European football next season.

After a week of criticism and doubt sparked by their dismal FA Cup quarter-final exit last weekend against Wigan, the Blues responded in defiant fashion to beat the Premier League’s reigning champions 2-0.

And Heitinga, who also overcame his recent spell of poor form with a fine performance, believes that Saturday’s display proved that team spirit at Goodison Park remains as strong as ever.

He said: “I think we showed that the team spirit is still here. We had to come back after a difficult week.

“It was hard for us, because everybody wanted to go to Wembley. For the first couple of days, everybody was disappointed, but we bounced back today, which was the only thing we could do.

“It was a great team performance. It is hard to say who was our best player, everybody played well. The way I see it now is that we have to play nine finals. Before this match, I told myself we had 10 finals, and now we have nine left.

“I want to go and play with Everton in Europe. We have nine finals, and we must see it game by game. The squad is really strong, and the focus must only be on the next game.”

Heitinga admitted it had been “a hard week” at Finch Farm following the FA Cup heartbreak, with “more meetings than normal”, but said it was key that the side regained their confidence in the aftermath of that defeat.

“Everybody was frustrated after the game,” he said. “Normally you don’t bring defeats home with you, but it stayed a little bit longer than normal last week.

“We had some meetings. More meetings than normal. We were shown some bits of the Wigan game, and we saw that too many players didn’t play the level they normally do. But the manager was positive, he said we needed to realise how good we were.

“The training was good, and I think the meetings we had last week were positive. On Friday when we played a ‘young versus old’ match, as we always do before games, you could see that the team was fresh and ready to go again.”

The win lifts Everton above Merseyside rivals Liverpool into sixth place in the Premier League table. They remain within touching distance of Chelsea and Arsenal above them, and Heitinga says the win over second-placed City will fire them on.

“At the beginning of this season we played really well, but the last couple of weeks less so,” he added. “But when Manchester City come to Goodison, it is a big game. Our record against them is good, but they are still last season’s champions, and it was a tough game. We played very well.”